This invention relates to a device for elevating a bed to provide useful space below the bed for storage or other purposes.
Many types of beds and bed frames are in use. Commonly a rectangular mattress rests upon a rectangular frame supported by two posts linked by a head board structure and two posts linked by a foot board. Quite often the top surface of the mattress is positioned at such a height that the user can conveniently move onto the bed from a standing position. More specifically, the top of the mattress is about 24 inches above the floor. Consequently, there is usually less than about 8-12 inches of clearance beneath the bed between the bottom of the mattress-bearing frame and the floor.
In various circumstances living space is restricted. Examples include dormitory, prison, military, hostel, small private bedrooms and similar living arrangements. One method of maximizing the useful living space in some of these situations involves bunking beds. This solution calls for providing extended bed posts for a first bed and mounting a second bed directly above the first such that the bottom of the upper bed""s posts sit on the top of the lower bed""s posts. Bunking beds reduces the floor space in a room required for the beds and frees up the floor space otherwise occupied by the upper bed for other uses.
Bunking beds does not provide added usable space when only one person occupies a room. Also there are times when multiple occupants prefer not to have their beds placed in an upper-lower bunk arrangement. Bed lofting, that is, elevating the bed a distance greater than usual, is the method often employed in situations such as these.
Bed lofting generally involves raising the mattress and its immediately underlying support frame several feet so that the floor space beneath the frame is cleared for storage, desk space, entertainment system, e.g., electronic audio and video equipment, or other furniture placement or other uses. In perhaps simplest form, lofting might be done by extending the standard corner posts of the bed vertically and mounting the frame higher on the extended posts. This solution has the drawback that the bed is permanently configured for lofting. That is, if the user later desires to lower the bed to a conventional height or to move the bed to a different living space, the bed will remain at lofted height on its longer posts.
Another, more flexible approach calls for putting objects under the posts of a standard bed so that the bed is raised temporarily. For many years beds have been lofted in this way, primarily by students in university dormitory settings. A preferred low-cost technique utilizes cinder blocks placed under the four corner posts of a conventional dormitory bed.
Bed lofting with cinder blocks suffers from many disadvantages. Perhaps the most important is lack of safety. Typical cinder blocks have an elongated shape. To obtain greatest lofting height they are stood on their ends which have small base and top areas. Consequently, during normal use the bed posts are likely to slide off of a cinder block or the block is susceptible to falling over. These events can result in personal injury and/or damage to the bed or other furnishings. If the blocks are oriented on their side for greater stability, the blocks take up much of the floor space which they were intended to save. Cinder blocks also do not allow for adjusting the height of the lofted bed unless multiple blocks are stacked on each other. However, cinder blocks are very heavy and it is frequently extremely inconvenient to carry many blocks to a bed lofting location. Still further, cinder blocks create a disposal problem. Because they are so inexpensive, they are often left behind, for example, by dormitory students at the end of a school term. Thus the residence institution must attend to the laborious task of removing and disposing of the surplus blocks.
U.S. Des. Pat. Nos. 404,992 and 423,340 of Sittig disclose manufactured bed riser supports. These can be substituted for and may solve the stability and structural integrity problems of cinder blocks. However, they are limited to fixed height lofting and they can be misplaced or stolen due to their apparent portability. To achieve substantial lofting heights of about 2-3 feet, such bed riser supports would appear to be bulky and to take up considerable amount of floor space both below and around the outside of the perimeter of the bed.
Bed lofting is also accomplished by constructing a scaffold system to elevate a mattress and frame. U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,023 of McCumber and U.S. Pat. No. 5,150,484 of Whitten, Jr. provide representative examples of these. It is still desirable to provide a safe, structurally sound, durable and efficient bed lofting system. Especially in the university dormitory environment, there is a need for a bed lofting solution that is easily transportable to the user""s location in a disassembled condition, rapidly assembled with a minimum of labor, adapted to withstand rough treatment, disassembled after use for compact storage, and which is capable of re-use for many cycles.
Accordingly, there is now provided a stand for lofting a bed supported at bedposts of the bed comprising
an H-shaped first end unit having two vertically oriented legs adapted to be positioned opposite each other under head end bedposts of the bed,
an H-shaped second end unit having two vertically oriented legs adapted to be positioned opposite each other under foot end bedposts of the bed, and
a truss extending under one side of the bed and rigidly connecting the first end unit to the second end unit,
in which each leg comprises a bottom extremity having a flat, horizontally oriented base, and a top extremity having a bedpost holder defined by an upwardly directed recess adapted to receive a foot of a bedpost,
in which each end unit comprises a cross brace extending horizontally between the legs of the end unit, and
in which the truss comprises (i) a main brace member positioned horizontally and fastened at one end to the leg of the first end unit and fastened at the opposite end to the leg of the second end unit, (ii) a support strut affixed at one end to the main brace member and fastened at the opposite end to the leg of the first end unit at a position vertically offset from the main brace member, and (iii) a support strut affixed at one end to the main brace member and fastened at the opposite end to the leg of the second end unit at a position vertically offset from the main brace member.
The novel bed lofting stand can be assembled with a small number of component parts, many of which are interchangeable.